According to Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader, by trying to stamp out peer-to-peer music trading, record companies are shooting themselves in the foot. I agree. I’ll be the first to admit that I download *scads* of music online, mostly using WinMX and Kazaa Lite. By doing this, I have been introduced to a number of new artists over the past 2-3 years, whom I *love*, and wouldn’t have discovered through the traditional channels (because, as we all know, FM radio sucks—internet radio is a little better). Some of these include Solex, Lemon Jelly, Clem Snide, Thievery Corporation, Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Money Mark, Coldplay, Kasey Chambers and more.

I have bought (and plan to buy) many more CDs than I would have if I had not downloaded all this music. The simple reason is, downloading alone does not satisfy you. It introduces you to good (and bad) music but a) it’s tough to acquire a whole album with all the tracks at the same loudness level/bitrate, and b) an average bitrate of 96-128Kbps only satisfies the ear for so long. CDs, at 196Kbps and up, are far superior in quality to MP3s. Long story short, I am a more avid music buyer because of file sharing. Let this post serve as Opensewer’s unabashed promotion and support of online file sharing.